Welcome Ryoko
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: An alein descends from the sky. She ends up charming Katara and Jinora and eating bees


**The Legend of Korra**

**The Arrival of Ryoko**

Ryoko had embarked on a blazing row with the ship's mainframe but the mainframe had begun a plummet into dementia and made less and less sense. The Starship Ginsberg had an _'artificial person' _because regulations required one and interstellar navigation required a degree of emotional detachment and inability to become bored. The numbers were huge and time spans were vast and if something really went wrong, an android with full knowledge of the ship was indispensable.

Something had gone very wrong.

She went to the cryogenic compartment and peered through the tempered glass window into the room and saw nothing except the shadows of the hibernation pods lit by electrical sparks. She pulled on the red handle but the door would not budge. The crew had died. She could see rays of the nearby star through a gash in the far wall which meant they had been exposed to the cold vacuum of space.

In any emergency, Ryoko was revived first - taken out of sleep mode and powered up in order to try and have a go at making things right. She wasn't granted access to the escape pods until all the biologicals had escaped in them – this included Fossy the ship cat. The mainframe regarded an emergency as any atypical situation arising from the random error messages spewed out by the cheap Staples ink jet printer. She had rounded up enough clothing and put things she thought she needed in a knapsack she held in her hand. She tried to interrogate the computer system as to the very bad nature of what had set the ship on the process of blowing up. In five minutes, if she didn't leave, she'd be vaporized into photons.

Something had clearly gone very wrong. The mainframe barfed out error messages and the wireless networking which normally came in at full strength anywhere in the ship had become dodgy, unreliable and a flash of confused text and image confused by noise in the form of cubes of vibrant colors. Ryoko pelted down the halls of the ship trying to get a clear idea what had gone so badly wrong but the computer systems only offered gibberish. Several sirens rang out and some noxious gas rushed out of piping.

Ryoko wished to know if she had arisen to change a cyan ink tank or if the massive ship towing a billion tons of platinum ore had actually decided to plunge into an alien sun. She also wanted to know why she kept receiving an electronic copy of_ Fellowship of the Ring_.

Her ears popped. This ruled out a printer screw up.

"Meteor impact...fusion reactor damaged." The green letters crossed her field of vision. "Crew dead from malfunction in cryogenic systems. You have five minutes to reach minimum safe distance."

Ryoko had a different biology and didn't require cryogenic life support and so was stored in a broom closet sized compartment just off the bridge. Hibernating next to the bog roils and paper towels had spared her life as that section had remaining life support.

The normal escape pod preflight checklist took five minutes. This assumed the escape pod had somewhere to escape to and that she had the time to indulge in checklists. She didn't.

Ryoko ran down the hallway. Alarms blinked red signaling a radiation hazard caused by a fusion reactor spewing vast amounts of high speed particles from its breached core.

Ryoko picked up the homing chip implanted in the ship's cat. She followed it into the hip galley, found the cat, grabbed the gray and brown long haired tabby, lugged it under her left arm and ran toward the escape pod.

"The third planet has intelligent human life." The mainframe talked to Ryoko over the ship wireless network.

"So you'll land me on the second one with the boiling mercury?" Ryoko stopped in front of the air lock that led to the escape pod. "I_ hardly_ look human."

A burst of static came over the ship comm channels. Ryoko didn't have to use her imagination to know the shielding protecting the ship's habitable levels wouldn't protect her for long as the radiation would rise exponentially until it cooked her alive.

"Can you tell me anything about the third planet? Anything remotely useful such as their level of technology!?" Ryoko now yelled out loud. She had long lost faith in the wireless ship network. The computer had largely been irradiated by surging neutrons to a useless hunk of diamond holographic processors with a few precious metals mixed in. It had nothing to tell her.

Ryoko had a good reason to worry. She had lime green hair in a long braid that ran to her waist and dark turquoise bat wings. She could fly like a bat but most of her model line served as the science officer on various ships plying the stars. Some geek at _Hyperdine Systems Japanese Branch_ had taken some artistic license in designing her to add a little color around a grungy spaceship. She had considered herself lucky because some of her model line had bright magenta hair. Unless these humans were color blind and blind, she'd never pass for human. Even in Earth history, those with visible differences had troubles in society in less enlightened times.

The radiation level on the ship had now reached levels that could kill in an hour. She could taste the kind of metallic taste in her mouth that reminded her of blood and her face itched as radioactive particles sliced through her.

She pulled the lever to open the air lock as she had visions of being burned as a witch.

She tossed the cat into the escape capsule.

"Before you explode, could you tell me something about the planet!?" Ryoko tumbled into the escape pod. "Please!"

Nothing came back in reply.

Ryoko strapped herself in the harness as the artificial gravity went on the blink. A series of explosive bolts detonated and the pod flew away from the ship.

"Mostly harmless?" The green text from the mainframe scrolled across Ryoko's vision but then the computer on board the ship barfed a heap of errors and the ship exploded. Ryoko instinctively wrapped her little wings above her ears over her face but the heat of the twenty five megaton blast seared through the view port window. The electronics on the pod fried from a blast of neutrons from the blast. The explosion reminded her of the fireworks mortars set off from barges to celebrate special occasions on Earth. She had never set foot on Earth but video feeds had shown her these great explosions set off to amuse the crowds. The fireball formed a sphere - red and blue streaks of vaporizing metal with velocities lethal in the extreme - flew past her – the final fading nebula faded from white to orange to red and finally to a residue of blue, radioactive vapor. In a few hours, the solar wind would push the remaining gases out of the solar system and scatter the atoms that remained of her ship to the galaxy.

* * *

"Crap!" Ryoko resented being given a fast biological brain and a faster computer processor coupled with a self aware operating system. She found being aware of her situation as she hurtled to the south pole of an alien planet to be problematic. "Crap!"

The next moment she heard the sound of metal wrenching and then saw a red box fly off the capsule and realized the number of problems she faced had become vastly, exponentially greater as that red box contained the braking parachute.

"Crap!" Ryoko plummeted to the ground. The capsule spun as a slab of flat ice spiked with gray mountains rushed up to meet her.

She had the presence of mind to ask why the capsule was plummeting at the speed of sound to the south or north pole of the planet. The computer on the ship must have told it the planet was populated and to land in some out of the way, remote region to escape detection where he could quietly die and leave no evidence.

She broke the glass covering a red button and then heard a roar as the door flew off.

She grabbed the cat as she jumped out of the capsule. The cat became a hissing and growling ball of claws as Ryoko grabbed it by the neck.

"If I time this right." Ryoko could fly but had doubts about her skills as she bailed out. "Cold!" She spread her wings, they caught air and then she unfurled her small canard – a cute set of wings above her ears.

She felt a thumping, throbbing cold sensation as she hit the snow.

The capsule made a dull thud as it struck the ground a few hundred meters away.

The red box containing the useless braking chute struck her on the head and deployed.

She struggled to get free of the white nylon parachute. The cat had a fit and shredded it with her claws then sat on it and looked at Ryoko with a glowering look of disapproval.

"God hates robots." Ryoko cursed.

She had a cute and yet ineffective defense mechanism used if she wished to preclude violent encounters. She heard footsteps and wrapped herself up in her wings. This offered very little protection but did make her appear smaller and less harmful to most humans according to some long forgotten and poorly constructed psychology study.

She heard a kind female voice. Her language computer switched on as it worked out the language.

"I saw you fall from the sky." The voice spoke to her. "Are you alright?"

"That depends..." Ryoko replied. "I remain fully functional and I remind you I'm not food."

Something nudged her.

* * *

"My name is Korra." Ryoko slowly peered out from her folded wings and saw a huge ape descended life form – a muscular female standing before her.

Korra had discovered the odd lime green haired robot in the snow south of the village and had to carry her over her shoulder because she refused to unfurl from her bat like wings and hissed dangerously. Korra had sympathy for her but also needed to know if she posed a threat. She picked her up as gently and also explained her intentions. Ryoko could conclude she meant her no immediate harm. The cat merely meowed and followed Korra back to her parents home as it hoped they were going somewhere warm.

When Katara arrived at Korra's home to examine the odd creature, it had not unfurled its wings and it hissed, then followed that up with well formed curses against God and the Universe. Katara tried to approach her but this only lead to more hissing.

Korra had placed her in the middle of the living room and there she sat folded in her wings.

"Can you please come out?" Katara tried diplomacy. "We need to make sure you're alright. Korra said you took quite a fall."

"Nope!" Ryoko told Katara bluntly. "I may be an artificial life form but I'm not a stupid one."

"We don't know how to take care of the cat." Korra informed the odd creature.

Watching Ryoko unwrap her wings was very odd indeed. A head of lime green hair appeared as she unfurled the wings above her head. A set of scarlet eyes darted around and looked about the room then her pointed ears twitched and slowly she unfurled her flight wings. Korra understood why the odd creature might be skittish. Korra had lugged her a click and a half, endured the hissing and complaining and dissertation about God, robots and how he hated them but the odd thing was her lack of weight. She weighed about as much as a dog and to her, even Katara in her old age_ had to_ appear large and menacing.

Her wings were impressive and she up in her almost Fire Nation nobility like black robe with her dark green colored pants. She stretched her wings as if checking them for injuries.

Katara wondered if she might be a _Spirit Realm_ creature blundering into this realm by accident. She rejected this because her water bending senses told her this creature has some kind of odd life force.

Katara watched Ryoko's odd scarlet eyes dart around the room. She looked frightened and frail but Katara and Korra discovered a very determined personality behind those eyes.

Ryoko looked harmless but as Korra and Katara soon discovered, she could get 'bitey'. She hissed when Katara tried to gently examine her bat like wings. She had a hideous hiss and her silver teeth made sparks and sounded like sharp knives when she bit. Katara treated those teeth with utmost respect.

"Can I ask you again if you're alright?" Katara asked kindly but kept her hands at her side. "We don't want to hurt you in any way."

"As the females of your species, I can assume that like other primates, your males are larger on average?" Ryoko had pointed ears and they twitched. "I'm checking this because I don't want to get stepped on and I need to know what I'm up against."

Katara could sense a mind bent on making life a royal pain. Ryoko had a psychology of sorts but she stated her status as the product of human engineering with no hesitation and Katara could see her life force, while present, was very alien to anything she knew.

"I need to check on you to make sure you aren't hurt." Katara stood still because she wasn't sure the lime green haired robot followed the same rules of etiquette as human patients. "I'm a healer."

"I have cat scratches all over my hands." Ryoko lifted up her hands which bled a white milky liquid with an acrid, chemical smell like strong solvents. "I came on a space ship which blew up and the ship computer was less than helpful and decided to plant me on this rock. I come from a planet called Mars where they built me." She folded her bat like wings. "The badly traumatized cat came with me in that capsule along with a broken desalination unit, Duracell batteries, a flashlight and a medical kit."

"I politely will admit I dislike being touched." Ryoko told Korra. "I may look like you but_ I am not you._" Ryoko trudged toward the crashed escape pod.

"Sorry." Korra had patted her robot friend on the back to point her in the proper direction and Ryoko emitted a foul hiss as her means of showing her disapproval and her hissing did the job very well – some alien engineer had designed the android with this hiss hard wired and it conveyed the message of annoyance with clarity. "You don't have to be so cranky."

"I don't have machine intelligences to talk to." Ryoko explained. "As a kind of machine, I have to work harder to deal with humans and their quirks."

The alien escape pod looked like a beer can with no door on the side. It had once been white, now its surface had pitting and charring from its descent into the atmosphere. It gouged out a crater where it had landed on the snow and then slid down to the bottom of it.

"Quirks?" Korra slid on her back down to the pod.

Ryoko more deftly flew to the top of it, collapsed her wings and then crawled inside.

_'There's something rather insect like about that girl.'_ Korra thought to herself.

* * *

"Did you realize this was my first space flight. Call it a training flight. As I needed experience in space, I was assigned to a bulk ore carrier bound for refineries in our solar system – a boring routine mission. As far as I could gather from the damaged computer, a meteor struck the ship and ruptured the containment on the fusion reactor and I had to escape before it blew up." Ryoko scuttled about inside the pod. "I had not expected to find myself here. I don't have the programming to cope with this kind of thing." She made a loud banging and crashing sound. "The pod barely survived the trip here and the explosion of the ship fried almost all the electronics including the emergency beacon._ No radio._" Ryoko announced her displeasure with a hiss. "The ship may have sent out a distress call – the mainframe was very badly damaged, the communication system scrambled beyond hope and so I have no clue but I don't pin my hopes on a rescue. In any event, way out here, no one will come searching for us given the expense involved. They may send another ship in the area to have a brief look but so few ships use this route that is doubtful."

"What about you?" Korra took a peek inside the cramped, dark capsule.

"I have no idea." Ryoko hung from the ceiling as she tried to open a toolbox. "Anyone of your people can tell I'm not human or vaguely close." She opened the red metal box and then clattered around the cabin. "I can tell you I was one of the first Ryoko series deployed to active duty. I have new genetic engineering to tailor me to space missions but I needed the experience to become proficient at my job." Ryoko picked the screwdriver she needed and set about to work on a panel next to the seat. "I must sound random to you."

"A bit." Korra said. "Are you human? Human in any way?"

"Not even vaguely close." Ryoko worked the screwdriver. "I look human but my design incorporates DNA from an alien source combined with artificial components and some artistic license from the Japanese. The corporation involved in designing me thought the widespread dissemination of this information might cause them to lose sales so they didn't even advise me on my biology. This makes me more adaptable for space travel – apparently."

Ryoko pulled off the panel.

"Who are the Japanese?" Korra decided to wait and sat on the snowbank.

"Some nation state on the Earth." Casandra tossed a large red plastic box out of the capsule onto the snow. "The lime green hair and my other colorful features such as my wings as well as my general look were their design. Not quite on the same level of artistic sensitivity found in cathedrals but it makes me visible in the dark – so I've been told."

Most of Ryoko's remarks went over Korra's head. She didn't sound random as much as simply from a very unfamiliar place. Korra thought it amazing that she could understand the little android at all and all the more given she claimed to be_ 'made' _and was_ 'artificial'_ and a living organism.

Ryoko tossed out a white box with red printing and then came out of the capsule. She flapped her wings as if to regain feeling in them and her ears twitched. Her engineers had intended her series to function on science and military missions and flight made her an invaluable tool on exploration missions or hunting down alien species on _'bug hunts'_.

Korra nearly fell over when she flapped her wings.

Ryoko chatted a lot. Ryoko lacked an internal dialogue although Korra had no means of knowing this. Ryoko interfaced with computers and machines and now her world had become eerie, quiet and full of uncertainty and so she chatted. She chatted with her cat and she chatted with Korra.

Ryoko explained much about what she knew about herself and her kind as she followed Korra around the house.

Korra found it odd a machine took pride in her name. Ryoko thought she had a pretty name compared to other series made by The Hyperdine Corporation such as the humanoid Bishop series used by the Colonial Marines. As Korra patiently listened to Ryoko, she discovered the android had never set foot on Earth – the home planet of the race of humans who had built her. She had come from Mars. She belonged to a new series based on a non human genome designed for space flight on scientific missions.

Katara spoke with Ryoko. Nothing as interesting as her had happened in this part of the world in many years. Katara set out to discover a few things. She offered Ryoko meat but Ryoko turned her nose up at fresh fish and smoked Komodo Chicken because they weren't fresh – then Ryoko explained she had to kill her meat. This came as an unsettling revelation. Ryoko loved fruit and this reminded Katara of her husband Aang and of Momo. Ryoko held an apple in her hands and gently poked it with her teeth and then held it as if drinking from a cup. Unlike any human, Katara observed how Ryoko held the apple and her fangs secreted a green fluid and the flesh of the apple began to dissolve quickly as the android drank the dissolved juice.

Katara wondered what could happen if she bit anyone.

Ryoko did not expect a rescue due to the distance and time. Katara felt guilty for finding this reassuring but she wanted distance between her home world and any race capable of making a totally complete being. She sensed no evil in Ryoko but anyone capable of creating a person and yet having the callous nature to launch it into space was to be feared. Ryoko wasn't a person but she had a desire to live and protect herself.

At eight in the evening, long after dark, Casandra finally gave Katara permission to examine her.

Ryoko had eyes like the cat, long slits that opened to light. Once Katara had gained Ryoko's trust, Ryoko allowed her to examine her carefully. Ryoko breathed like her. Ryoko have a warmth like any human and yet was so alien. Her engineers had designed her to cope in as many carbon based ecosystems as possible and so she breathed but lacked a heartbeat. Katara heard a slow hum.

Ryoko was alien but somewhat biological. She didn't sleep which was fine for Korra because she had regained her mobility but she couldn't sleep well.

Ryoko walked around the snowy yard.

"I have gone very deaf." Ryoko said unemotionally. "You have a few radio stations but as a machine intelligence, I can't hear anyone else."

"We don't have this sort of thing." Korra said sadly.

"I feel cut off." Ryoko looked at the girl up at four in the morning.

"So do I." Korra wanted to pat Ryoko's shoulder but averted that response.

"You belong to this biosphere." Ryoko answered back. "I do not."

Ryoko had a directness Korra liked. Her scarlet eyes betrayed a kind soul. She had rescued the cat from the ship and shehad no directive to do this. She did it because she thought it was the right thing to do. Machine or man, Katara and Korra liked Ryoko.

"I had nearly died." Korra told Ryoko. "I was saved but I am not myself."

Ryoko said nothing but she shivered.

"I have no response but you can pet my hair." Ryoko said slowly. "You saved me."

The braid was beautiful. The lime green hair felt silky and quite unlike the girl attached to it had crashed through the atmosphere.

"I can't talk to anyone but Asami." Korra said suddenly as she pulled apart the braid and waited for something shocking. "You have nice hair."

"Katara explained it was not forbidden or sexual to touch it." Ryoko answered. "That must sound stupid. Well I'll push on. If you can talk to Asami maybe you love her as well."

"I nearly died." Korra had decided to explain to the robot and held nothing back. "Zaafir poisoned me with metal and I was dead."

"I see." Ryoko said quietly. "I once heard a quote – life with no pain has no meaning." She turned to face Korra. "I can't help you with this. I can tell you I feel cut off."

"Can I hug you?" Korra asked.

"I will allow this," Ryoko replied reluctantly, "but will you find this useful?"

Ryoko allowed this because she had admitted to Katara's wisdom and had calmed down. Korra was a very strong woman and hugged her tightly. Ryoko eventually pushed away.

* * *

In the following days, Korra had to learn the methods of reading an entirely new kind of being. The cat made sense but Ryoko often had some confusing aspects to her behavior. Ryoko showed a semblance of emotion but had a number of odd ways. She dressed as neatly as a pin. She had to braid and brush her hair with the kind of rigor unknown to most teenage girls. Katara wondered if Ryoko was a budgie colored Fire Nation noble.

Ryoko could hang upside down from anything in the ceiling that could bear her weight. Korra had almost become used to seeing her hanging from lights with her wings wrapped around her. Ryoko picked perches where she could see things going on around her. Katara attributed this kind of behavior to the kind of trauma someone might experience having found themselves on a backwater planet with little or no hope of returning home.

In the evenings, Ryoko often hung from a rafter on the roof. Her wings had some kind of bony finger like appendages allowing her to hang upside down. If she felt traumatized; she let no one know about it. She looked out over the living room and kept her eyes on the activity going below her.

Korra looked up at Ryoko.

Ryoko unfurled the little wings covering her face and looked down at Korra. She let out a little yawn.

"Doesn't all the blood rush to your head?" Korra asked.

Ryoko scratched the beam and then slowly let herself down to the floor in a strange bat like ballet of moving limbs.

"I find it cold so I like to hang like this because it's warmer up here. I don't have much meat on my bones." Ryoko dropped down to the floor. "I also don't want to be trodden on. If I hang up from the roof, I won't have to worry about someone stumbling around and stepping on me. As I'm only just larger than the cat, this concerns me."

"That makes sense to me – I guess." Korra sat down on a couch covered in dyed furs.

"I thought you'd gone to sleep." Ryoko had seen Korra walking around the house at all hours as Korra didn't sleep well. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Katara says I need time." Korra answered Ryoko. "Time to find myself again. Until then, I have dreams that keep me up."

Ryoko sat on the floor with her legs crossed and wrapped herself in her wings.

"You can dream?" Ryoko said with an envious and admiring voice. "They say all intelligent creatures dream. I don't know how and I've always wondered about it. I had a long sleep and yet had no dreams – nothing. I could ask about this but the answer would be that I don't need to dream."

"I spent a year in a wheelchair," Korra said with resignation, "and now I can walk but I don't _feel_ free. It's a long story."

Ryoko nodded. "I don't have anywhere to go."

Korra found it difficult to explain Ryoko to Asami when she composed her latest letter to her friend.

The family had a cheap black and white camera that failed to do justice to Ryoko's exotic appearance. A black and white picture of the alien dangling from dew claws on a rafter didn't make matters much clearer. Wiser people had failed to explain human ways and Korra found herself completely at a loss to explain Ryoko but she was refreshingly different from others because she never pretended to have an agenda.

Ryoko listened to Korra. Ryoko hung from rafters in the living room and politely didn't interrupt Korra's stories. Korra had doubts if the poor android understood much of the detail but she listened. Infinitely more patient than most people, Ryoko listened as if Korra had something to say. Korra thought she might have made a study of the human condition or perhaps Ryoko in a world without other computers wanted to listen to a story.

Ryoko did make a study of people; their motives and their actions.

Korra's parents decided to accept the presence of Ryoko in the house. She took little care and took care of the cat. She added color to the place.

Korra described Ryoko to Asami but began to wonder if the android had become much like an exotic pet who happened to come with a long haired cat. Ryoko deserved more respect as a friend than as a robot, an android or a cyborg or other terms Ryoko commonly used to describe her condition. Katara described her as _'alien'_ and the life force Katara could sense implied she was alive. She didn't fit in the conventional biological taxonomy of The Realm as she looked human but flew, she had a human face but the hissing, the metal teeth and lime green hair made no sense in primates. Ryoko ate fruits vegetables and insects; so did swamp benders and many primates. They didn't digest it by injecting it with venom from fangs. Ryoko shocked those who did not know this method of eating came naturally to her.

Korra sat on the couch in the living room correcting her latest letter to Asami when she discovered Ryoko hunted mice. Most houses in the Southern Water Tribe had mice and the odd rat because the homes of the humans offered warmth and food. Trapping or hunting them did no good as they bred so rapidly so most people relied on cats.

Ryoko hung upside down from the rafter that gave her the best view of the living room. Korra had no reason to pay her any attention. Ryoko had her wings wrapped around her but had her head out of this 'cocoon' and held a book in her hands. The book was the _History of the Avatars_ and Korra thought it might help Ryoko come to grips with her situation.

The noise of page turning stopped but Ryoko didn't begin to talk – this was unusual. Korra noticed Ryoko had her attention turned to a dark corner of the room. Ryoko twitched her ears and Korra wondered what she might have heard in a drafty house full of noises. Ryoko dove down silently out of her roost and grabbed a gray mouse in her mouth while grabbing the book with her hand. The speed and silence of the attack startled Korra although Ryoko pulled it off with a degree of effortless ease.

"You didn't tell me you could do that!?" Korra said in a high whisper.

"Mmmh! Mmmh!" Ryoko replied as she regained her perch with a very dead mouse in her mouth.

Ryoko swallowed the mouse head first and licked her lips.

"What?" Ryoko held the book in front of her face. "I have to swallow the tail." She coughed. "There we go."

"How do I explain _that_ to Asami?" Korra looked at the half finished letter. "Why did you just eat a mouse?"

"I have the tools to hunt vermin. Most spaceships have mice or rats and so my manufacturer decided to implement instinct for hunting rodents in my model." Ryoko licked her lips with a flourish. "I can't help it; it's in my nature. Most 'artificial humans' look like humans but I'm not as much an_ 'artificial human' _as an_ 'artificial life form' _designed to serve on space ships."

"Some people might find that revolting." Korra picked up her letter.

"I acted humanely." Ryoko rebuffed. "My venom kills a mouse instantly and then digests him."

Korra had heard of snakes using the same time saving contraption to kill their prey. Newspapers printed the odd story about some unlucky bloke in the desert took a bite from any one of a dozen dangerous species native to the Earth Kingdom. If they blundered to a healer or hospital still alive, they often had huge, disfiguring scars where the fangs had penetrated the skin and dissolved the flesh.

"Should I be worried?" Korra looked up at Ryoko now hanging serenely over her head.

Ryoko pulled her book down. "You have quite a few mice in this house. Have you considered the potential health issues arising from this?"

* * *

Ryoko had the instincts of a hunter. She had an agreeable personality and possessed a keen intelligence but Korra found herself constantly reminded of the_ 'hunter'_. Ryoko could hang still for hours from the ceiling wrapped up in her wings and then plunge down like a hawk onto a particularly big spider or unfortunate mouse. She took only the blink of an Avatar's eye to do this.

She liked the mice on offer in the house but she had such good skills at hunting, she soon had to go further afield to find them. Korra went on long walks with her or as Ryoko called them – flights. The steady stream of chatter came to a sudden halt and Ryoko flew into the snow and came out with her favorite food twitching in her mouth. Korra noticed Ryoko didn't always hit the target.

Ryoko could fly but was not a strong flier. She had the same skills as a novice air bender. Korra could easily outrun her with her glider. Ryoko flew like a bat, not a bender but as Korra learned, this was yet another deliberate design choice. Ryoko hunted rodents and lemmings, mice and rats didn't run as fast as she could track them by sight or sound. Korra had taken out her glider and Ryoko had her eyes peeled out over the snowy landscape and while she catted to Korra, she suddenly stopped and dropped out of the sky. Korra suddenly saw the snowy white rabbit Ryoko had gone after. Ryoko had never taken on anything as fast and large as a wild rabbit. Ryoko struck the rabbit at the full speed of her fall. The impact raised a cloud of snow. The sickening crunch came up from the impact as Ryoko flapped and regained flight. The rabbit in her mouth had expired; crushed by the blow from the massive impact.

Korra shook her head wondering why Ryoko's skull wasn't also smashed or even why she didn't even show any evidence of a concussion. Ryoko took hold of the dead rabbit with her hands as if nothing had happened.

Ryoko didn't eat rabbit but offered it over to Korra and her family after an assurance that the rabbit had not been injected with her venom.

Ryoko's skills as a hunter contrasted with her personality. Ryoko gave the homey explanation that _'hunting vermin was in her nature'_. Observation revealed to Korra that Ryoko was very intelligent and had a complex personality. She wasn't a random killer but had a clear concept of 'vermin' and a tactical mind capable of taking them out.

She had saved the cat. She wasn't a cold killer.

"Another letter to Asami?" Ryoko hung from her favorite rafter and read a newspaper. "This is the fifth one in a month."

Korra had trouble sleeping on many nights and Ryoko had come to anticipate her company.

"I find it easy to talk to her." Korra scratched in a notepad with a pen. "We went through a lot together what with her father and my near death at the hands of Zaheer."

Ryoko rustled the paper.

"I see." Ryoko said in a self evident manner. "You've spent much time telling me all about your adventures and yet I feel quite inadequate to the task of being a good listener."

Ryoko had a formal, almost rehearsed manner of speaking but spoke flawlessly and with no hint of an accent.

"I enjoy our walks and talks and flying with you, but Asami can relate to me." Korra tried to explain that while Ryoko was a friend, she wasn't up to the task of understanding the human condition given that she hunted small animals from the air. Still, she felt obliged to spare the feelings of her odd technicolor friend. "You're my friend but she's far away in Republic City."

Ryoko crawled along the rafter slowly shuffling along while holding the paper in her hands.

"What does she say about me?" Ryoko positioned herself so she could read Korra's letter.

"She wants to meet you." Korra said kindly. "You intrigue her because you are so new to our world."

Korra knew Ryoko could read her letters and made every attempt to do so. Korra didn't mind. Ryoko wasn't an idle gossip nor did she care about the nuances of human friendships but she had a curious nature.

"Asami says she'd like to learn more about you as a person and what you're like – face to face." Korra sat hunched over the coffee table and continued to slowly write out the letter. "You're very very smart. You have great skill as a hunter."

Ryoko had a very characteristic answer to complements about her hunting or flying: "It's in my nature, as you know I was made that way."

"You are less chatty this evening," Korra had noticed the idle conversation had grown more serious. "Usually you want to talk to me about all sorts of things but you're quiet."

"I have spent five weeks here," Ryoko deliberated, "and my people have not made any attempt to contact us. I had slim hope I'd pick up any attempt to communicate with us but – nothing." Ryoko hung still, brooding. "I have to stay here but that means making some kind of future here."

Korra sat up. "What kind of future?"

"I don't have the kind of software – as we call it – to deal with this situation." Ryoko spoke quietly and then sighed. "Humans make decisions and their machines carry them out. I had a function and a purpose and now I have nothing at all." Ryoko knew Korra had no experience with technology and yet she pressed ahead. "I can pick up wireless signals but here, all I pick up are radio stations. No computers, no ships, nothing. The radio stations blare on about news and sports like pro bending but I'm used to machines that tell me things. I find this lonely."

"We have no mice," Korra lifted her pencil to punctuate her point, "and for us that makes you quite valuable."

"An opaque remark given that a lime green haired girl with a radio set – as you call it – in her head stands out." Ryoko fluttered down from the rafters and landed next to Korra on the seat still holding the paper. "I'll end up on someone's alien autopsy table."

"Asami said she could use your help developing new products for FutureCo." Korra actually meant_ 'help Asami because so much of Ryoko was new to the planet'_. Korra could lift Ryoko on the palm of her hand – the little robot was amazingly light but had a frame that let her light body take falls without a scratch that would kill most humans.

Ryoko pondered this. "You lack the industrial technology to make the kinds of composites used in my skeleton. They are 'living' like your bones but you'd need to understand how to genetically engineer bone cells to make them – I think it has something to do with spiders and silk but I'm not a molecular biologist." Ryoko paced on the couch. "My builders had to coax my cells to make all sorts of lightweight plastics which makes my genome a kind of patchwork quilt sewn out of genetic material from all over the galaxy. The same company made the ship I came in on, and so I'll likely dissolve into a puddle of cancer in time."

"I don't mean to be rude, but can you let me finish this letter?" Korra had little to say. Ryoko had a dark sense of humor; another part of Ryoko's personality she couldn't understand. Korra had wondered if Ryoko might be depressed but Katara saw no signs and had no idea if she could even express such an emotion or was merely noting aspects of her condition.

Ryoko stepped off the couch.

She looked at Korra. She slowly opened the newspaper, her ears twitched and she began to read.

Korra had come to love her little friend but had times when her alien mind caused simple things to be very difficult to explain. Korra had no desire to be rude to her, but Ryoko meant to wait in that spot until the letter was finished. Ryoko sometimes needed advice on what to do next.

"Can you please find something to do?" Korra asked Ryoko.

Ryoko shrugged and trotted away into the kitchen of the house to find a place to hang from and read the paper.

* * *

Tenzin had more concerns about Korra's new friend. Korra had done little to prepare Tenzin for meeting the alien on his upcoming visit. Jinora had come with him to visit and she found Ryoko more than a little unsettling.

They met Ryoko as they flew in on the family sky bison.

She had flown up to see the sky bison because her native curiosity wished to see ten tons flying without any visible means of lift. She had seen Korra use air bending but she couldn't wrap her mind around Ryoko's teal colored wings. She flew using wings and it took a nervous system engineered by aerospace engineers coupled to a complex web of sensors, finely tuned instruments able to tell hger what she could or – most importantly – _could not _do while flying.

She flew beside the dour looking Tenzin. She flew past the young girl. The sky bison could easily our run her but Tenzin kept his speed down and Ryoko struggled to keep up her lift.

He had known of the lime green haired little _'alien' _or _'android'_ or whatever. He saw a small human attached to large dark blue green bat wings. She dressed in a manner that reminded him of the dress of the old Fire Nation nobles such as Lord Zuko, but with a black tunic and loose fitting bright green clothes. She wasn't a graceful flier and he could tell she couldn't air bend. He said nothing as he flew along side him. She had odd little wings growing out from her pointed ears and they twitched and moved.

"Welcome," the strange little girl said in a strong voice, "Korra said I should at least say that much as you are an air bending master. Rabbit!"

Tenzin watched in bemusement and then horror as the little girl folded her wings, dove into the ground and in a sickening impact, took out a rabbit in a cloud of white fur.

Korra _had_ mentioned this. Ryoko had the instincts of a bird of prey.

He watched as Ryoko flew back up with a bleeding rabbit corpse in her mouth. He felt like a cat owner wishing to scold his cat for eating the local birds; but Korra had insisted _he ignore this_ as best he could.

Ryoko flapped as she adjusted herself so as to hold the rabbit in her hands and leave her mouth free for talking.

"Why!?" Tenzin wasn't very good at ignoring this sort of thing. He felt disgust and then wished to find out exactly how such a frail looking thing as Ryoko could take a fall from hundreds of meters, use that speed and kill things yet not smash herself into the ground.

Jinora wore a look of utter revulsion. She prepared herself to give Ryoko a good tonguelashing but held back. Tenzin had warned her about the sweet looking girl made of spare parts who hunted mall animals. Jinora wondered if this actually was a warning sign that Ryoko had a career as a serial criminal or lawyer.

"I'm a guest so I use my gifts to help the family as best I can." Ryoko flapped beside Tenzin's sky bison who had become a bit skittish when he saw the attack. "Humans hunt far larger and rarer creatures – its in my nature to hunt vermin. Humans seek far more from the hunt than ridding themselves of pests and living off the land."

_'Have I just been put down by an alien?'_ Tenzin gripped the reigns and began to descend.

Jinora and Ryoko didn't get along at first. Jinora had embarked on her career as a teenager and Ryoko had meager social skills and didn't like being touched by humans.

Jinora found Ryoko revolting and had told the little alien as much. Jinora saw the sharp teeth and the claws on her wings as _'bat like' _and she fit into her mental image of something evil.

Ryoko dealt with this by hanging up out of reach, wrapped up in her wings, hanging from a rafter, reading books and hissing loudly at the sight of Jinora. Ryoko had such an unpleasant hiss, the household decided to broker a truce between the two.

"Can I offer you a bug or a mouse?" Jinora stared up at Ryoko who stared back down.

Ryoko hissed. "You think you can buy me with treats?"

"That is so gross." Jinora looked up at Ryoko. "You know I'm a vegetarian and don't eat meat but you eat it raw."

The wings above Ryoko's ears bent forward. "You don't say." She peered at Jinora as if examining a minor annoyance. "Come back and complain to me when the rats have tainted your fruit or when mice have eaten all your vegetables and grain. Then tell me you need me to be a vegetarian."

Jinora had deployed the standard technique of teenagers for testing the patience and temperament of adults in their lives and had decided to be both sarcastic and condescending, dismissive and insulting in order to determine the right recipe to piss off an alien. She was losing badly and decided to try another approach.

"Do you want to have a race with me and my glider?" Jinora challenged Ryoko. "Do you think you can win against _an air bender?_"

"Why don't you keep standing there and I'll drop this book on you." Ryoko's ears twitched and the wings above her ears pointed at Jinora. "I won't get any tasty bugs out of the deal, but giving you a concussion has its own satisfaction."

Tenzin heard the evolving conversation from the kitchen and grew concerned. Jinora wasn't tormenting her brothers or sisters or making unreasonable requests of him; she was chiding a creature with venomous fangs.

"Jinora," Tenzin said sternly as he walked into the room, "we may find Ryoko odd, we must remember as air nomads, we once were persecuted for being different." Tenzin looked up: "Can you come down for a moment – we're here for a week and need to get along."

Ryoko dropped off the rafter and flipped in mid air. She deftly held the book through this aerobatic move and landed without a thump on the floor. Tenzin saw this as wholly remarkable as Ryoko folded her wings neatly behind her back and flipped in a fluid motion. Jinora had derided her as a collection of spare parts; Tenzin saw her as a remarkable creature.

"You should take this as a chance to learn from a master flier." Tenzin lectured Jinora. "Could you flip like that in mid air in so short a time or would you land in a heap on the floor?"

Ryoko looked up at Tenzin with her cat like scarlet eyes.

"You find me an odd creature?" Ryoko asked seriously. "I prefer to think of myself as _the acme of the art and science of genetic engineering_. At least that is what the company that made me stated in their sales catalog."

* * *

On the third day, Korra, Jinora and Ryoko went out for a flight. Jinora and Korra had trouble understanding why a race advanced enough to build living things from scratch had not designed Ryoko with far better flight characteristics. Jinora had expected to see some super human demonstration of acrobatic flying but Ryoko flew like a big bat. Jinora and Korra had already leaped from the ground while Ryoko had to spread her wings, run into the wind and flap. Once in the air, Ryoko had trouble keeping up to the two girls as they flew over the snowy fields behind the house. Small and light Ryoko faced the same challenges as any bird and relied on her light weight to stay aloft.

Jinora and Korra had wondered why any advanced race capable of building living beings like Ryoko from scratch didn't design her with better flight characteristics. The one thing Ryoko did do well was dive. She didn't wish to see a kill but wanted a demonstration of Ryoko's dive bombing and so had given Ryoko a dozen small stones.

Jinora discovered what the wings over the alien's ears did for flight. Jinora watched Ryoko's wings fold up and she fell. Her small wings made adjustments so she could control her fall. Jinora noticed the small pond below them and Ryoko strafed the ice with the rocks and punched meter wide craters in it. The loud cracks took a moment to reach them but the loud gunshot like sounds revealed how much energy Ryoko had let loose in her fall. She opened her wings, flapped and stirred up snow as she gained back her altitude. This showed her flight stroke had power.

"Does make you wonder." Korra smiled at Jinora.

"And that is how we do that." Ryoko flapped back up completing her parabolic arc.

Jinora had watched the entire dive. Ryoko had become a falling rock with steering. The wings on her head above her ears now made sense as the head was the heaviest part of the body so having control over how it fell, gave her the necessary control. This left many questions unanswered. Ryoko should have earned a headache, whiplash and a bleeding nose given she had let herself fall and then changed direction without air bending, just by the brute force of her wings. How wings that folded up like those of a glider could take that without shredding was also a question that merited an answer.

"Can you teach me how to dive like that?" Jinora asked eagerly.

Ryoko flew alongside Jinora.

"No." She answered unemotionally. "Your glider doesn't have the right design and you'd crush your skull."

"How do you do it?" Jinora asked out of curiosity.

"Hard to explain..." Ryoko began carefully. "I have extra braces in my skull."

* * *

Katara had grave doubts about any future technology able to shape a human like being with made to order physiology. She took the matter up with Ryoko as they took a walk through the village. Ryoko looked passable enough that her back story as a being from the Spirit Realm held up to casual scrutiny. She passed as human enough to walk in public and her color scheme came as part of her appearance as an apparition.

Ryoko had extra struts in her skull. She had explained this aas best she could to Jinora but Ryoko was a genetically engineered creature built to specifications, not a natural girl like Jinora.

Jinora had come with Ryoko and Katara to study how Ryoko handled the public.

She had an interest in a creature which could fly and yet looked human. Ryoko flew. She had to rely her natural instincts and from Jinora's observation; they were keen.

Ryoko peered over the counter of a market stand. She had her eyes on a nice piece of fruit. She loved her apples and papayas and yet down here; she had to have patience because the supply depended on the weather. Bad weather and shipments arrived late if at all. Much to the winged creature's delight, the greengrocer had a shipment of pears.

"Hello there." The greengrocer had come to regard the fruit loving little person as one of his most profitable customers: she purchased the expensive tropical fruits as well as seasonal and expensive fruits like the pears.

Ryoko took a paper bag and began picking from the bin. "These are exceptionally ripe for this time of year."

"They came in from Kyoshi Island yesterday." The greengrocer had a chubby body and a fat face and he smiled pleasantly. "May I offer anything to you two ladies?"

Ryoko held out the paper bag and then handed over her money in payment. Korra and Katara gave Ryoko money on these trips to buy fruit. That she took such enjoyment from such a simple food seemed odd in a genetically engineered alien.

Katara knew Ryoko had life but then her knowledge fell short. Ryoko weighed less than the same meter tall child – too little. Given that Ryoko had wings, extra bones in her skull and metal in her teeth; she ought to weigh more. Her builders had built her to fly like a bird or bat. Ryoko had no more insight into the reasons for her deisgn than a child understood why they played or why the young man loved the maiden. Ryoko naively took it as a given she had the ability to fly, she had a designer and she did what she did for her own reasons she called her nature or her _'program'_.

Ryoko handed Jinora a fine reddish yellow pear.

"Thank you?" Jinora seemed astonished at the show of generosity.

Ryoko took a pear in her hand and began to drink it like a fountain soda. Jinora had heard from Korra of this odd ability of Ryoko's to liquify fruit but compared to her hunting, this was quite discreet.

"So you're no an air bender like us?" Jinora asked out of genuine curiosity.

"I can't _'levitate'_ like you or make air bend like you." Ryoko explained as she walked along with Jinora. "You might say, you bend the air to fly while I take the air as it comes. We didn't have bending where I came from. Some rare people could move objects with their minds or read minds, although we've tried to bend like you; we never could." Ryoko looked down at her feet as she walked along the frozen road. "Some attempts to try has lead to some sad moments in our history."

Small things in nature amused Ryoko. Ryoko had a clear knack as a kind of instinctive naturalist – she had to understand the ways of her prey. Tenzin found her hanging from the roof rafter and taking an interest in a spider spinning a web. She wanted to eat it but decided to let it live because it had done such good work on the web, Ryoko thought it best to let it be to enjoy its life. Ryoko tilted her head and remained still as she watched this little spider.

"Can I speak with you?" Tenzin looked up from the center of the living room.

"You just did." Ryoko told Tenzin. "What you didn't tell me is the reason or topic of this conversation." Ryoko had wished to watch the spider finish the nest. Something in formed her that kind of gray and brown spider was tasty but also informed her that it would be unfair to eat her in the middle of spinning a web.

"Katara told me Korra still has trouble sleeping?" Tenzin pressed ahead. "I sense she still has far to go to regain her confidence. She hasn't written nearly enough and she doesn't want to talk to me."

Ryoko hung off the rafter but moved to one side to let the spider have room to work.

Ryoko preened her braid then tucked it back inside her wings.

Tenzin rubbed his neck. Ryoko could hang off thing with some kind of claws on the first joints of her wings for hours but he found it tiring to stare up at her while trying to hold a conversation.

"She doesn't talk to me about those times." Ryoko answered back carefully. "I have such an alien appearance, she doesn't feel comfortable talking about such personal things."

Tenzin began to pace in a circle below her. He found Ryoko a very alien being but one who felt quite comfortable in her skin._ 'She likes her ways' _was Katara's homespun answer to Ryoko's odd behavior.

"I find myself lucky in many regards." Ryoko clicked a claw. "I come out of the factory, ready to cope with spaceflight and I have all the skills I'll ever need. I didn't have the long, clumsy childhood. I came with all my mental and psychological faculties intact so I can't do justice to Korra's life experiences." Ryoko glanced over at the spider. "I lost my ship. I should feel traumatized and alone – except for the cat. I have the kind of psychology designed to take all this in stride without getting too worked up. Someone like you might call this _'inner calm'_ but I know this is all genetic engineering."

Tenzin paced the room. "I'm quite concerned about Korra. I hoped you might have talked to her about the events of the past few years."

"What can I do? I watch spiders for fun." Ryoko answered Tenzin's question with one of her own and gave a dubious look. "Korra's family has been hospitable, but I'll admit Korra and I aren't close. She hasn't discussed her life with me in much detail. What do I know from the Avatar – I eat mice."

Ryoko confronted curling with less than all the confidence she confronted problems like catching rodents she spotted against the snow. Ryoko was familiar with the human need for recreation but the Realm had no computer games. Ryoko had suggested involving Korra in some activity and Tenzin suggested curling.

He found a book on curling for her to study in the local library.

Ryoko hung from her rafter beside a very splendid spider nest and studied the text carefully studying the rules and seeing some very practical implications for her participation in the game. She had no problem with the ice sheet or sweeping or strategic planning or with the basic rules governing curling.

"The rock weighs more than_ I do_." She announced to Tenzin as he walked beneath her with a cup of green tea. "So given that, how am I supposed to play?"

"You made the suggestion," Tenzin drank his tea thoughtfully, "not me."

"I don't know from curling. I actually recall suggesting Korra needed something to fill her time. I think I mentioned curling half as a joke and didn't expect to be taken seriously." Ryoko held out the book of rule and tapped it. "I suggested Korra needed something to help her out of her shell. I could have picked cribbage but she's one of sporty girls. I wanted a winter sport we could play together and so that ruled out hockey. I don't have the same kind of temperament she has and so that ruled out contact sport. On the other hand, my life hasn't been that exciting. I'm so bored I've begun to take interest in what this spider has in mind for it's web."

"I wondered why you hadn't eaten it." Tenzin replied with a hint of sarcasm.

Ryoko hissed quietly. "I have little else to fill my time. I don't think curling will fill the void in my life or Korra's life."

"What about returning to Republic City with us." Tenzin realized after he had spoken that he had been ambiguous. He had meant those words as an invitation to Korra to return to Republic City.

Ryoko had grown quite bored and mulled the invitation.

"I don't get along with you." She admitted frankly. "I've met your daughter and she barely finds me tolerable."

"What can I say?" Ryoko peered over the saddle of Appa at the cold seas below. "Korra didn't want to go."

* * *

Tenzin had not wanted to leave the Southern Water Tribe with an alien like Ryoko under his care. She had any number of annoying behaviors wired into her for reasons Tenzin's couldn't truly fathom.

Ryoko didn't sleep. Tenzin had a small flying alien with lime green hair and an almost boundless supply of energy. She had explained her need for sleep differed from his. She hadn't explained that at times, they were quite incompatible.

Her engineers had imposed their own requirements on her ability to rest. An_ 'artificial person' _unable to function all of the time due to the biological imperative for sleep sold fewer units than one without the need to take the time to sleep. Such a cyborg could be functional all of the time and Ryoko lacked the need or drive for normal sleep but since she had a biologically advanced brain, she needed sleep so they used their genetic and technological prowess to pull off a trick used in mobile computer processors to save power.

Rather than having a set cycle for sleep, an implant watched the activity of the brain. When Ryoko quit using a lobe of her brain, it placed it into a sleep cycle. If she had no one to talk to, the temporal lobe went to sleep, if it went dark or she closed her eyes, her occipital lobe fell to sleep. Each thirty six hour cycle, her brain, on average would receive the sleep it needed including REM or rapid eye movement sleep. Since the regions of her brain switched into sleep when not in use, she lacked awareness of any of this and she didn't dream.

Jinora could count on Ryoko to spot anything in motion on the surface of the sea. She spotted all sorts of interesting things from the air including whale pods and tuna. Ryoko keyed off motion in a manner no human could. She could see something moving under the sea long before Tenin or Jinora could make sense of it. Ryoko could tell they had embarked on a journey north because she could see the Sun move and even more remarkably – she could calculate their position.

At a stopover at the Southern Air Temple, Ryoko encountered her first bee hive. Tenzin didn't know he had to tell Ryoko not to bother bees. Ryoko knew all about wasps, bees and stinging insects – she found them absolutely delicious. On a spaceship, having Ryoko on hand to deal death to a nest of wasps proved helpful. At the Southern Air Temple, she obeyed the exhortations of her soul when she discovered bees lingering around lilacs.

Jinora and Tenzin found Ryoko fixated on something – they didn't see the bee she had begun to track. The Southern Air Temple had fruit orchards and they thought Ryoko had gone after some colorful butterfly or mosquito as she walked around the main temple through to the backyard.

Tenzin and Jinora heard the splitting of wood a few moments later.

Ryoko had found the bees. She had a piece of the honeycomb in her hands and was lapping up bees. If they had tried to sting her, she didn't show it. Tenzin discovered her surrounded by a cloud of bees buzzing around her. She had herself perched on top of the wooden hive box she had torn the top off of and enjoying herself. She had a clump of the honeycomb in her little hands and licked the bees off of it as they tried to escape or fight back.

"Ryoko!" Tenzin yelled out.

Jinora waved off an angry bee. She didn't find this as surprising as she thought she should. Ryoko struck a cute pose balanced on the hive and she enjoyed insects

"No!" Tenzin scolded. "_Don't come over here._" He stepped back as more angry bees came in on a suicide flight to sting him. "Can you leave the bee hives alone! _Please!?_"

"We won't be self sufficient in honey –_ just yet_." Yuriko said sadly. She had come from the Earth Kingdom and was one of the newly discovered air benders. She had raised the bees to pollinate the flowers and to provide honey for the now thriving Southern Air Temple. "Don't you know better? You ate my _best_ queen."

"I've already been scolded." Ryoko explained as the two of them stood in front of the hive she had demolished. "Tenzin yelled at me when he found me breaking into it."

"He should have explained to you about how we humans use bees to provide honey and pollinate our flowers." Yuriko scratched her head. "At least you didn't kill off all our hives." Yuriko had never seen a girl with lime green hair, fangs and teal wings much less one that could chew apart a wooden hive, find the bees, not get stung then eat the bees. Words didn't come easily to the beekeeper torn as she was between the urge to choke the annoying lime haired girl and her oath as a novice air bending to pacifism. Tenzin had done his best to calm matters down by explaining that the odd girl ate bugs and meant no harm and sternly explained to Ryoko that bugs like wasps, ants and spiders were for eating but bees and silkworms were off limits.

Ryoko had done as much damage as a hungry bear. She had chewed the top of the hive open and broken into many slivers.

"Can I help?" Ryoko tried and failed to sound apologetic. She loved the taste of bees and wasps and she could smell the tangy formic acid still lingering in the air and hoped to find a few bees or their larva in the torn up pieces of honeycomb scattered around the yard.

"Not a chance," Yuriko shook a bee off her hand. "I'm not mad but I don't trust you. I thought racoons or something else might get into my bees but not an alien with silver fangs." Yuriko had a nice braid of reddish hair and bees began crawling up it and she hook her braid. The bees had not yet calmed down from the assault on the hive and without their queen, that hive would scatter and die in a week. "Now I need a new queen."

Ryoko had no problem digesting bees but she had also eaten honey and that much sweet honey at one time overtaxed her stomach.

Yuriko stood over Ryoko who leaned on the palms of her hand and wretched. Yuriko wondered what she ought to do as Ryoko puked up a yellow slimy mass of gooey bees and honey.


End file.
